MSU v TT in the Alamo Bowl: Air Raid basics and how Leach will attack MSU

by Graham Filler on Dec 22, 2009 7:00 PM CST in Michigan State

I'd like to start this post by saying Stride chewing gum is, by far, the longest lasting gum out there. I chew gum constantly and I've been through Orbit, Five, classic Wrigley...and there is just no comparison. I'm happily chewing a piece of Stride right now and I guarantee it makes it to the conclusion of this article. And no, I'm not being paid by Stride (I wish) or auditioning for Mad Men...though I wouldn't mind meeting January Jones.

Mike Leach began his education in and around the pass-giddy BYU program. He's made the "Air Raid" principles successful wherever he's been. So although I claim no special knowledge of the Air Raid (i.e. played against it in high school or...something), I love watching the ease in which yards are picked up and the way Leach tosses out "typical" thoughts about offensive balance or success.

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I want to go over the misconceptions and strengths of the Air Raid, what Leach has been able to do this year, and what we can expect Texas Tech to attack MSU with.

Air Raid Basics

One of the things you'll hear about TT's "O" is that it's "complicated" and takes a lot of repetitions. While any great offense takes a great amount of practice to be successful, the playbook for Leach's O will be relatively light against MSU, I'm guessing no more than 15 passing plays. However, these plays will be full of many different options, making the offense seem extremely complicated.

Here's an excerpt from a 2005 WashingtonPost article:

Two years ago, a high school senior watched Texas Tech on television thinking its freewheeling offense looked awfully confounding. Now a quarterback in the program, Graham Harrell knows better, even pointing out, "Coach never handed out a playbook."

...

In all, Hodges said, there are no more than 25 primary passing plays, but each can be run using five different formations. The challenge is for the quarterback to know when to switch plays at the line of scrimmage.

Here is a typical progression read by a quarterback from the original BYU concepts:

62 MESH

5 step drop. Take a peek at F/S - if he's up hit Z on post. Otherwise watch X-Y mesh occur - somebody will pop open - let him have ball. Vs. zone - throw to Fullback.

Now I won't put these in order of importance, but the Air Raid demands knowledge of defense, quick read progressions, and great chemistry between WR and QB. Texas Tech has been able to harness these.

The Air Raid in 2009

The Red Raidaa's (say it like Barbara Streisand combined with John Madden, it's more fun) have kept their offensive torch burning this year, sporting the nation's 2nd best pass offense at 380 ypg while scoring 37 ppg (9th best nationally). They also average 25 first downs per game - the third most in the nation and very symptomatic of a team excelling at short passes.

This success offensively came in spite of losing starting QB Taylor Potts for a few games thanks to a mid-season injury and a general "feeling out" process toward who the starting quarterback will be. This can be easily witnessed in the 142.6 quarterback rating of Texas Tech's quarterbacks - the teams lowest since 2004. Even though quarterbacks and wide receivers are sometimes regarded as interchangeable in the Air Raid, the lack of experience was shown this year during a turnover-laden perfomance by Potts against TAMU and during a 3 point first half versus Baylor. The Red Raiders have also allowed 30 sacks, again symptomatic of passing offenses but by far the most allowed by Leach's O-line during the last 4 years.

The wide receivers are bigger than I would have expected (an image of 5' 7'' waterbug Wes Welker pinballing through secondaries is stuck in my head). The six receivers we'll see the most of against MSU average 6' 1'' 183 lbs - if anything, that's lanky.

What will Leach try against MSU?

The same thing he always tries, of course. Quick passes to wide receivers in space, slants into open grass, dump offs to running backs. On film, Leach will see the same things that have driven TRE and Spartan fans everywhere crazy, namely MSU's inability to keep their zone intact against crosses, no jamming wide receivers at the LOS, and a lack of pass rush from the front 4. Obviously the numbers don't lie:

Penn State's Spread HD (lots of moving parts, Daryll Clark)...310 yards passing, 4 td's...

Minnesota's play-action (which had minor success all year)...416 yards, 5 td's...

Notre Dame (New England Patriot infused pro-form)...300 yards, 2 td's...

NW's Spread (Narduzzi said of all the opponents, this was closest to TT)...291 yards, 2 td's..

I will eventually take a look at the TT defense, but the Air Raid system has always been one of my favorite to watch. It's this kind of "flavor" that makes college football so intriguing, as one Big Ten team will face a triple option attack this Holiday season, while another will face the maestro of wide splits and quick passing.

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Excellent analysis

I’m a Tech fan & longtime season ticket holder. What the numbers don’t tell you is that this is the worst offense Tech has had in 10 years under Mike Leach. Mostly due to inconsistenet QB play and bad protection, which is a chicken and egg quandry as to which is more responsible. The o-line took 2/3 of the season to settle in to a fixed lineup. Prior to that players were trying different positions week in and week out (we graduated 80% of our starters after 2008). So our QB’s are running for their lives. Taylor Potts doesn’t handle the pressure well at all. His backup Steven Sheffield does. Unfortunately Sheffield was hurt after starting two games so we had to return to Potts. Potts has several bad tendencies: He throws off his back foot under pressure & rarely plants both feet before throwing. He throws sidearmed, he overthrows long passes & underthrows short screens. He has a canon arm with little control so there are plenty of drops when he zings a pass in at such velocity the receiver can’t hang on. Frankly I’m amazed the offense ranked so high statistically. They were only truly consistent in 2 or 3 games. Why Potts is starting the Alamo Bowl rather than Sheffield is the $64,000 question. I was really hoping that the Baylor game in Jerryworld would be his last start as a Red Raider. Maybe Sheffield is still hurt.

Having said all that about Tech’s offense this year, Tech’s defense has played as well as I can remember a Tech defense play in the Mike Leach era. In only 1 game (Texas A&M) did they lay down & fail to give the offense a chance to win. And that was because of false overconfidence (A little background: Traditionally Texas Tech views Texas A&M as its biggest rival. In every recruiting class as far back as I remember Texas A&M ranks higher than Texas Tech, usually by a great deal. But over the last 14 years Tech has beaten A&M 11 times. That is because Tech plays with more fire in the game & that emotions overcomes the mismatch in talent on the field. A&M sees The University oof Texas as their only rival, so year in and year out are surprised at the intensity of Tech’s play. This year in the two weeks prior to the Tech/Texas A&M game, Tech beat Kansas State 66-14 at home. The following week Kansas State beat Texas A&M 62-14. So for the 1st time that I can remember, and I’ve been following Tech football since 1977, Texas Tech didn’t get up for an Aggie game. They assumed it would be a cakewalk & decided to take the week off. The mismatch in talent finally showed itself on the field).

But I digress. Except for the A&M loss, Tech’s defense kept them in all the rest of their games. The other three losses were all road games against Top 20 teams. None was by more than 10 points (At Austin vs. #2 Texas). We lost by a point at #12 Houston and by seven points at #14 Oklahoma State. All in all a frustrating year, becasue for the 1st time in the Leach era, Tech had a defense that would allow them to play with the best teams in the country, but the offense went inconsistent. That’s my insiders view for what it’s worth. Good luck in the game.

by mbrown603 on Dec 23, 2009 10:39 AM CST reply actions 1 recs

The biggest change in Tech the past few years

Has been the (finally!) arrival of some semblance of a D. While no one is going to mistake Texas Tech’s D for that of Alabama’s, the past two seasons they’ve actually been credible and able to stop opposing offenses in both dimensions of the game. The biggest obstacle holding Tech back in the first 5-6 years of the Leach era was the fact that they played no defense. Sure, they’d hang 60 on you, but they’d also give up 65. This is what kept them from hanging with, and beating, the likes of Oklahoma and Texas, against anyone with a good defense who could stop Tech 2-3 times they couldnt’ hope to keep up. Really looking forward to this game, despite being a Big XI fan, because it is just fun to watch Tech play.

I ate the blue ones ... they taste like burning.

by HoyaGoon on Dec 23, 2009 5:32 PM CST up reply actions

no question

The Rivalry, Esq.

by Graham Filler on Dec 23, 2009 5:36 PM CST up reply actions

Tech is notorious for starting slow after a break in the game prep rhythm

Nice write up grahmfiller10. Leach has very few plays but many places for his folks to stand. The essential a idea as laid out by mbrown603 is force the opposing defense to run a lot to no particular purpose while allowing thru the simple blocking scheme the QB to progress thru at least 3 x reads before he has to throw. The RB is in fact like all offenses the real work horse they take dumps screens and shovel passes while waiting for the exceptionally large upper body o line to grapple a couple of defenders to the turf. (yeah we get a lot of penalties)The O line Coach Moore has stated publicly they only have two pass protections and a couple of run blocks schemes. The defenders are pretty good essentially forcing everyone to be perfect to the red zone then playing for the mismatch with a shortened field. As stated before the 2 x best game were against Nebraska (defense scored a TD) and Oklahoma (an INT in the end zone and 2 x FGs forced effectively keeping 8 points off the board in the first half) , 2 x closest games lost were against Houston and Oklahoma State and in those game the Raiders defense did enough to give the offense the opportunity – in fact twice in the 4th period against the Cougars to score and put it out of reach.
On Special teams the raiders are very much a no big mistake crowd. They punt and cover well. Kickoff returns are average and punt returns are okay with the returners occasionally torching someone for 10 plus yards. The Place kicker is money from 25 yards in on a FG or Extra point try. They rarely ever try a trick play though against Baylor who was trying to run out the clock and keep it close they did fake a FG. It worked but we tripped ourselves for the tackle inside the 30 yard line.
Wrote a small posting about what to worry about versus the bowl opponent, before we knew the Spartans were enroute to the Alamo City. Follow the link to Double T Nation.

http://www.doubletnation.com/2009/12/8/1191913/random-things-to-worry-about-for

"do routine things routinely"

by centexraider on Dec 23, 2009 8:32 PM CST up reply actions